


On the count of (we've nearly been)

by winterysomnium



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: First Kiss, Keith pines, M/M, set during season 2 episode 1, some well deserved smooches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-19 00:53:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11886483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterysomnium/pseuds/winterysomnium
Summary: how Keith got to smooch one (1) Takashi Shirogane---He’s been here times and times before.He has nearly kissed Shiro, countless of times.





	On the count of (we've nearly been)

**Author's Note:**

> aka according to my calculations it was exactly about damn time Shiro got smooched (for real)

Keith has had a thousand of nearly’s, of nearly crushing the colour off of his bike, to the raw metals underneath, to the heated heart of the machine; has almost crashed it, into the sand currents of the desert, countlessly, has barely made it out of his life alive, has nearly lost fights upon fights before, has nearly lost a tooth (in sets of threes), has nearly lost the seamlessness of his bones, under the pressure of barely caring about much at all he has felt for months between the summer and fall, he has lived through the never enough’s, the never fully there, the never fully grown realities of his self.

Yet nothing has ever given his heartbeat such a high, such a curve to its fall he’s getting dizzy just standing there, tracing every line he’s ever seen Shiro’s face paint into his skin, every sun spot illuminating the imperfection of Shiro’s shave, on hazy, chaotic days, every wonderful, disastrous detail and it somehow became Keith’s favorite story, his favorite goodnight song –

 connecting the dots, connecting the tips of Shiro’s lips to his nose, the roots of his brows, the half formed constellation of his eyelashes, the moons of his skull, the somehow always there irritated circle of skin, raw and if there’s ink on his fingertips Keith can see the print completely, a confession of something Shiro won’t let on otherwise and he’s never been feeling this strange, this terrified, growing up and burning up and standing up; he’s been here times and times before.

He has nearly kissed Shiro, countless of times.

The day Shiro graduated, the date he made the Kerberos crew, the day he left, the day he came back, the day he woke up and wouldn’t know what it meant, the day they put on armor to code themselves in as a part of the universe, the day after, the day after that, the day before the last of them, the day he heard him not sleep in his room, the day he heard him walking, through the halls, a haunting, possession, someone too restless to stop, to think of it as something not impossibly difficult, something as close, right at the core of their skeleton.

He has barely tasted the curve of Shiro’s mouth, at most before, the dip between his third and fourth vertebrae, the temple of Shiro’s thoughts, the loud, sound laugh he has forgotten along with things dragged out of him on the Galra ship – Keith has kissed them all, almost, at last, never before.

He has tried, has grieved for the future he couldn’t have brought back, when the Blue Lion was the only thing glowing, alive, in his life, when answers were just questions in hiding, when sentences could run on for miles, for hours of useless radio static walking him through the night and he’s about to leave it there, on Earth, on the place he never got to do this, never made himself try enough for them to exist.

He’s careful. Shiro’s hurt, sore in places neither know about, there’s foreign dirt of a planet unknown smudged across him, like he’s a painting forgotten halfway, the warmth of the sun bores into the dark of their suits and there’s a freckle, cut in half, right under the scar Shiro carries now, like a fossil, uncovered and he looks on, at Keith, cut through the horizon and if the atmosphere is not breathable after all this is one more reason not to give up as Keith’s helmet sighs against the ground and there’s more reasons to give in now than ever – Keith grasps at Shiro’s face.

It’s texture, at first. Lines, the circumference of shallow warmth and a dry gasp, a little more of it, of pressure, of gravity, just enough to ache against their teeth and Shiro’s fingers make it to Keith’s neck, his ear, the axis of his spine and they stay with that, the ease, until Shiro strays away and lets Keith chase him back, chase after all of it, again and it’s only when Shiro strains against the wound that Keith doesn’t need it for them, right now, anymore.

“Shiro?” he asks, shivers when his mouth hits the cold of the world and Shiro struggles to keep himself on his feet, leans against the rocks at their backs.

“Since when did you want to do that?” Shiro asks in return, slipping closer to the crackle of their fire, his strength giving away to the glow, the memory of impact, woven into, through, throughout his skin.

Keith guides him down, safely and doesn’t let on how much he wants to linger there, where Shiro places his weight, where he settles, where he just – is.

“A while. Are you okay?” he pulls the doubts sat in his knuckles back and pushes ahead, pries Shiro’s fingers away from the rise of his side, the glow unearthed fully; Shiro’s hiss fills up the atmosphere around, it aches in Keith’s mouth.

“I’m still alive, so that’s something.” Shiro smiles, but it morphs into a cough somewhere in-between and the heavy stir of something he can’t help, can’t solve, stays with Keith for hours, for the distance of the sun sinking, the colours fading, the tide within Shiro, raising, losing its course.

“You’ll stay that way,” Keith answers, firmly; he’s trying to convince them all. “You’ll stay alive.”

Shiro presses another smile into his face, looks into the fire, as if he’s searching for a prophecy, for something he had written onto the inner side of his teeth, the soft of his mouth.

You’ll stay with me; Keith thinks, loud enough to deafen everything else.

You won’t have to be lost, again. You won’t have to barely survive, barely sleep, nearly forget all of you, again.

(Keith has barely kissed him, once.)

((Keith has barely begun.))  


End file.
